Wretcher

Wretcher is a horror point-and-click adventure game that strives to
follow the old ways. Its style is heavily influenced by Clock
Tower, the first horror adventure game of its kind (and still one the best),
but also by Alone in the Dark and Silent Hill.

The player will soon find himself immersed in a nightmare, costantly
hiding from monsters and struggling to survive in order to put an end to the
madness.

Alas, the game is still in the making but, in the meanwhile, you may find
a short gameplay demo in the Download
section that shows off the atmosphere.

The Story

A famed archaeologist commits a murder-suicide, or so the police say, leaving
behind his mansion and all of its possessions in the hands of his niece Aileen.
Together with her friend Keith, they seek to unravel the mystery behind
his death and the dissappearance of his wife whose body was never found. A
darkness cast its shadow over the mansion with more than just secrets awaiting
to be discovered.

The story takes place in the secluded town of Crowhaven where the
mansion lies, but the action will take the protagonist, Keith, between this
and the other world.

The Characters

Keith
Morrison

Born: March 5, 1983

Eye color: Gray

Height: 5'9" (175 cm)

The protagonist, an aspiring writer, has agreed to help his girlfriend,
Aileen, to move into her uncle's mansion and to help her figure what really
happened the day he died.

Aileen
Hayward

Born: January 23, 1984

Eye color: Lilac

Height: 5'6" (168 cm)

A young aspiring archaeologist, she got the passion from her late
uncle and is the sole inheritor of his mansion along with all the possessions
within.

The Project

The journey began one day in the far 2008 while chatting in a long forgotten
chatroom with some friends, I proposed to make a horror game with a collective
effort, I started tossing out ideas and everyone was thrilled. Obviously,
the very next day everyone had completely lost interest and despite my best
efforts to involve them back, I ended up having to do everything myself. Well
to be fair one of them gave me *one* usable idea, ahah.
Anyway, the first embodiment of Wretcher was something completely different,
you see, at the time the only game engine I knew how to use was Rpgmaker,
so that was what I had planned to do the game with.

It was around that time that I came to know of Clock Tower, which I found
to be most inspiring.
Time passed and I kept finding myself getting back to it, working on the story
and brainstorming. The unnamed horror game was growing. After an initial attempt
to create the game on Rpgmaker, I realized it was not what I had painted in
my mind. I saw it better as a point and click, but doing so would have meant
a lot more to code, draw and animate... was I capable to do it ? I knew I
had to.

So I searched for a better game engine that would have allowed my vision to
turn real, and that's when I found AGS (Adventure Game Studio),
So I learned the scripting engine and started practising to draw backgrounds
like CT and I must say it took me quite a while to get good enough since I
had never drawn pixel backgrounds before.

And now the engine is ready and all what's left is filling it with the contents.
I just hope I'll manage to deliver this game the way I envision it.

Screenshots

Download

How to play

Panic Mode
During panic mode the portrait flashes and the player has to repeatedly
press the left mouse button to struggle.

Chase scenes
While being chased there are different interactions and the player is always
running. To end a chase the player has either to find a hiding place or find
a way to make the monster give up pursuit.